A new moon is up all day. It rises with the Sun, crosses the sky beside it, and sets with it, invisible the entire way.

New moon is not the Moon being away; it is the Moon in the daytime sky, lost in glare a few degrees from the Sun with its lit face turned from us. That same geometry is why solar eclipses can only happen at new moon, and why, thanks to the 5° tilt of the orbit, almost none of them do.

Source: U.S. Naval Observatory (opens in a new tab) · checked Aug 2026

🔮 The folklore version: Burnt by the Sun

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A new moon is up all day. It rises with the Sun, crosses the sky beside it, and sets with it, invisible the entire way.

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A new moon is up all day. It rises with the Sun, crosses the sky beside it, and sets with it, invisible the entire way.

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